I’ve had some kind of motorcycle since I was 8 years old. As a kid, my two and three-wheeled contraptions were motorized passports to freedom in the woods. When I got older, my bikes were fast and meant only for eating up pavement. In the past five years, I’ve reverted back to gravel roads and […]

These two guys from the Bangor area just posted a Youtube video of their overnight motorcycle stealth camping adventure somewhere in Maine. Judging by the bridge they cross over the Piscataquis River, they started out on the Lagrange Rail Trail. After that? Who knows? They end up taking a path unknown to them and camp next to […]

On Sunday morning, I unzipped my tent and the normally silent nylon fabric crackled like the plastic wrapping my dad used to take off his pack of Winstons before lighting up. My breath swirled around my head, orbiting in a cloud of smoke. It stuck to my beard in icy chunks. The sun had not summited the […]

I’d made up my mind. The next person who walked through the door, brushing sleet off their shoulders, motioning to my motorcycle parked outside and asking, “How’s the riding?” was going to get my small paper cup full of coffee in the face. I’m not normally a hostile person. I’ve waited out the rain in […]

On Friday night I wore two pairs of long johns, Red Sox-themed fleece pants with a long-sleeved, insulated undershirt, a flannel shirt, a hoodie and a one-piece, insulated Dickies jumpsuit. A wool hat, two pairs of socks and gloves completed the look. Then I wriggled into a 20 degree down mummy bag and then squeezed […]

I came to a stop behind Thermos on the dusty trail. He had both of his gloved hands over his head. He was clapping. Just ahead of him, in the middle of a small stream was Keith. His bike was submerged, up to both cylinder heads, in brown water. The rear of the bike was […]

I set out, heading west, around 5 p.m. Friday night. It took me ages to wriggle through Portland’s commuter traffic as working stiffs squeezed out of the city, headed for their weekends in the suburbs. Once I got past Standish, on Route 25, the cars and traffic lights thinned out considerably. Still, I knew I […]

The roads leading west into New Hampshire were slick last Friday morning. The leading edge of the snowstorm the TV weather folks were calling the impending “Snowpocalypse” or “Deathstorm ’13” in their typically understated fashion, was already dumping snow on me. I was astride my Russian-made Ural sidecar rig headed from Portland to Fryeburg. It […]

I left my house in Portland Friday at the crack of noon after packing and tying up some loose ends with work. I was to meet a couple of fellow sidecarists (Thomas and John) at the Phillips Memorial Preserve near Oquossoc later in the day. But first I had to ride to Bath to pick […]

Troy R. Bennett

Troy R. Bennett is a Buxton native and longtime Portland resident whose photojournalism has appeared in media outlets all over the world.